It was in 1958 that a fabulously talented 23-year-old French pianist made his name in the musical world with the release of his debut concerto...

It was in 1958 that a fabulously talented 23-year-old French pianist made his name in the musical world with the release of his debut concerto recording for Columbia Masterworks. That coupling of the Grieg A minor and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, with Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra, was the first of many best-selling albums that Philippe Entremont would record for Columbia over the next two decades.

In 2014, Sony Classical issued a set containing all of his concerto recordings. Now, to mark Entremont’s 85th birthday in 2019, Sony is pleased to announce the release of his complete solo recordings at budget price.

Philippe Entremont was born in Reims to two professional musicians who were also his first teachers. He then studied with the legendary pianist Marguerite Long and entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he won numerous prizes. When he was only 16, he won the prestigious Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition. European tours soon followed as well as his Carnegie Hall debut in 1953: playing concertos by Liszt E flat Concerto and André Jolivet, he “brought down the house” with his “technical and musical mastery” (New York Times). The new release, which contains many recordings never before issued, ranges from Entremont’s 1956 Chopin recital originally released on CBS’s Epic label to a recital of keyboard favorites he recorded in Vienna in 1985. There is Entremont’s Debussy, played “with bold splashes of color...and tremendous warmth” (High Fidelity) and his Liszt. The many other recitals in this capacious, newly remastered reissue showcase composers ranging from Rameau, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Kuhlau, Clementi, Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Mendelssohn to Tchaikovsky, Rubinstein, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev. There is Spanish music by Granados, Albeniz and Falla. And, naturally, there is an abundance of French music – works by Fauré, Ravel, Satie, Poulenc and Saint-Saëns. Two very special albums recorded in 1979 deserve separate mention: a coupling of Dohnányi “Nursery Song” Variations, the Strauss Burleske and the Litolff Scherzo, with Okko Kamu conducting the National Philharmonic, and the delectable recital from Paris in which Philippe Entremont accompanies the great soprano Régine Crespin in mélodies by Ravel and Satie.